Bonnie and I went out (OK I kinda dragged her along) to the Bose store and purchased a new Lifestyle System. It is basically a full home entertainment system that now houses all of our music collection (we loaded all of our CDs into it, kind of like you do with an IPOD). It is also our FM stereo, DVD player, video receiver and everything else all built into one tiny little box. It even upconverts video from our TIVO to high resolution format, so we do not get squishy images on the HD monitor.
I must say I LOVE THIS SYSTEM. I got rid of a huge wall unit full of gear and replaced it all with a little box.
I must say I LOVE THIS SYSTEM. I got rid of a huge wall unit full of gear and replaced it all with a little box.
The speakers are cubes, which can travel anywhere with us. Very best of all we can now run everything with just one remote control (we used to have 5). This remote also controls the TV and TIVO.
I have heard some people make negative comments about Bose gear. Things like if it is all highs and lows it must be Bose. I will admit it does not have as full a midrange as my huge system did, but it sounds great. I am sure that most would not notice the difference, even in a side by side comparison.
Setup was amazing simple, there is a software tool that configures the entire system for you. You put a little gadget on your head, it looks somewhat like headphones, but there are actually microphones built into it. The system plays a series of squeaks and burps from each speaker and then uses the information collected to recalibrate the settings to fit the room you are in. The result is amazing surround sound regardless of how bad your room is.
The other cool thing that the system does is allow you to create profiles of the style of music you want to hear. You vote, via the remote, to tell the system if you love a song, like a song, dislike or absolutely hate it. After a few votes the system begins to figure of your taste and starts selecting music that suites you. The more you use it, the better it gets at predicting. Our friend Ian hates country music, so we let him create his own profile to use when he is visiting.
We have enjoyed our Wave Radio for a long time, they let us trade it in on the latest model so that now we can link the Wave Radio into the lifestyle system and have remote access to the music library. Bonnie can listen to her profile in one room, while I watch movies in another.
Consider me a fanatic!
I have heard some people make negative comments about Bose gear. Things like if it is all highs and lows it must be Bose. I will admit it does not have as full a midrange as my huge system did, but it sounds great. I am sure that most would not notice the difference, even in a side by side comparison.
Setup was amazing simple, there is a software tool that configures the entire system for you. You put a little gadget on your head, it looks somewhat like headphones, but there are actually microphones built into it. The system plays a series of squeaks and burps from each speaker and then uses the information collected to recalibrate the settings to fit the room you are in. The result is amazing surround sound regardless of how bad your room is.
The other cool thing that the system does is allow you to create profiles of the style of music you want to hear. You vote, via the remote, to tell the system if you love a song, like a song, dislike or absolutely hate it. After a few votes the system begins to figure of your taste and starts selecting music that suites you. The more you use it, the better it gets at predicting. Our friend Ian hates country music, so we let him create his own profile to use when he is visiting.
We have enjoyed our Wave Radio for a long time, they let us trade it in on the latest model so that now we can link the Wave Radio into the lifestyle system and have remote access to the music library. Bonnie can listen to her profile in one room, while I watch movies in another.
Consider me a fanatic!
Post Script: for those of you wondering what happened to the giant audio/video system I used to have, we sold it all piece by piece on Craig's List. Then we used the proceeds to pay for the new system!
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